The Fraunhofer Innovation Platform is the result of a closely integrated collaboration between Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen and the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
Their purpose is to bring together domain experts, academics, and solution providers from the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands and beyond to facilitate a joint strategy for promoting innovation. Their goals are to align leading-edge applied research for both industrial and public customers and promote technology transfer through the joint exploitation of results.
The new brand name represents a closer alignment with the Fraunhofer model, which encompasses several key elements. Fraunhofer works with universities and industry to scale up cutting-edge research into real working technologies according to an industrial timetable. In general, early stage R&D is typically done in universities, national laboratories, and corporate
research centres whereas implementation is typically done by industry. However, there is a gap in the middle which very few organizations address. This gap, both a knowledge gap as well as a funding gap, greatly slows down the product development process. It is precisely this area that Fraunhofer focuses on and has done so very successfully for over 50 years, allowing it to become Europe’s largest R&D organization. More specifically, FIP-AM@UT teams up with the University of Twente and industrial clients to quickly and cost-effectively move new ideas at the concept stage to the factory.
Since the Fraunhofer Project Center’s inception in 2017, their close partnership with the University of Twente has been one of their defining characteristics. With 3,300 academics, researchers, and other professionals and over 12,000 students, the UT is a leading driver of innovation and a catalyst for change in the fourth industrial revolution. To that end, one of the key responsibilities of the partnership is to have a beneficial economic impact to the Twente region by transferring scientific research into real-world industrial applications.
Their mission is to provide sustainable solutions to build resilient and prosperous communities. This includes improving healthcare with the adoption of personalized technologies, creating intelligent manufacturing systems to enhance efficiency, empowering the development of smart materials and metamaterials, and engineering a more resilient, adaptable, and digitally-driven society.
To meet these goals, they keep a close eye on innovation opportunities and deploy authoritative expertise with a keen sensitivity towards the needs of organizations and society at large. To achieve that, the Fraunhofer Innovation Platform needs to go beyond research to become a fullyfledged solution provider for manufacturers.
